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This is why I always say that microservices are a technical fix for a political problem. Technically they're harder to manage and often come at a high technica
by pytester 7y ago
This is why I always say that microservices are a technical fix for a political problem.
Technically they're harder to manage and often come at a high technical cost that you should never attempt to pay if you don't have to, but it's an effective way of managing the often extreme coordination costs that exist in large, dysfunctional companies that simply don't exist elsewhere.
I used to rail against microservices for years (working in startups) until I finally worked at a large dysfunctional corporation trying to run a lot of complex processes that spanned a lot of tightly coupled departments and then I started to see how they made sense.
It also gave me an appreciation of the problems Bezos recognized when he tried to decouple the organizational fiefdoms under his control.
- colechristensen 7y agoorganizations which design systems are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations At startups you don't need Conway's law, not enough people to be relevant. At large companies software and people organizations tend to match or in the case you and parent are talking about need to match. I'm willing to believe that things don't necessarily have to work this way, but I haven't seen it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law
- JamesBarney 7y ago100% agree but I use the term organizational instead of political because I feel like "political" hints that it's only necessary because of the organization's dysfunction and I believe microservices are useful even when the organization is functioning well.(though maybe the point where it makes more sense to transition is later in a well functioning organization)
- retiredcoder 7y agoIt is somewhat limiting the fact that in our industry, challenges related to social and human factors are either dismissed, denied, or taken under negative tone. Social sciences and political philosophy could really benefit how we treat ourselves daily, in my opinion. However, it seems that if it is not “technical” is dysfunctional. PS: I am not saying that’s my take from your post, just something I observe in general. Heck, even I use the term political to signal dysfunctional work. :/
- pytester 7y agoI didn't really mean to use the term "political" pejoratively :\ I was more focused on saying "the furthest possible thing from a technical problem".